A couple months ago, my husband read a Real Simple article out loud to me called "Yes, There Is a Right Way to Shower." We mainly thought it was hilariously dumb, although I suppose some people don't get excruciatingly detailed instructions on how to shower from their parents, so I bet it serves a worthwhile purpose for some people.
Plus! As much as I wanted to poke fun at this article, I ended up learning two new things. First, that you DON'T need to leave conditioner on your hair; supposedly it works immediately. (I am suspicious.) Second, that you should wash your face at the END of the shower. The latter tip, I put into practice immediately. I'd been washing my face first thing in the shower for… decades, so it took a bit of effort to change up my routine. But now I wash it at the end of the shower. And I like it. (Sometimes I still forget, and get out of the shower, and then have to get back in to wash my face. But that's only happened a handful of times.) (I also have been showering in as cold water as I can stand; Jenny, I think, recommended washing my face and hair with cold water as helpful for my rosacea. Plus, it's so hot ALL THE TIME that I rather enjoy the cold showers. My teenage self – who routinely got yelled at for using up all the hot water, so long did I linger under the steam – wouldn't recognize me and my five-minute cold showers.)
I've never been great at washing my face. I will admit, guiltily, that I very rarely washed my face AT ALL (except in the shower) until I was in my thirties, and even then, I would usually use one of those dreadfully wasteful Neutrogena wipes or a Noxzema wipe and call it good. (I know, I know.) I would just... go to sleep in whatever makeup I was wearing and then wash it off in the shower the next morning. (I still find that the Neutrogena wipes are the best way to remove eye makeup.)
But now that my skin seems bent on destroying my life (why yes, I do tend toward hyperbole, why do you ask?), I am much more rigorous about washing my face. And I hate it.
I've been using, on the advice of my dermatologist, Cetaphil facial cleanser. It's mild and seems to mostly work? I honestly have no idea; my skin seems to flare occasionally of its own mercurial whims, and I have no idea why. (Thankfully, it has yet to flare so horrifically as it did back in late April/early May. I am armed with my sulfur face wash and antibiotics prescription for when it inevitably happens again.)
In addition to washing my face in the shower (which I do as quickly upon concluding my day's workout as possible), I wash my face in the morning and at night, at the same time I brush my teeth. (Same general time; I am not doing both simultaneously. I use a washcloth to wet my face with cold water. Then I use my hands to lather up the Cetaphil and apply it to my skin. Then I use the washcloth to wipe away the cleanser. I have a little towel rack on which to hang the damp washcloth, which keeps it both close to hand and away from my dry bath towel.
The thing is… the washcloths don't last. I change my bath towels every week, and I get that a towel used to clean a dirty face might not last THAT long, but they seem to go two or maybe three days before they start to get a little stinky. And I don't have that many washcloths! So I go through all the washcloths before I have a chance to launder them (while I change my bath towels weekly, I wash them every two weeks) and when I am out of washcloths I have to turn to my hands.
I CAN wash my face with my hands. But it's AWFUL.
Inevitably, water pours down my wrists and pools in my elbows. It also cascades down my face and dampens my sideburn area, a portion of my hair that is prone to corkscrewing wildly at the least exposure to moisture. Water also slides down my chin and trickles down my neck and sets up camp in between my boobs. By the time my face is clean, my entire body is wet and I might as well have just showered.
Why is this so hard? What am I doing wrong?
I feel like I could probably address a couple of these issues with money. I mean, I could just buy enough washcloths so that I can swap them out daily. Or, if I want to eschew washcloths entirely, I could buy face washing accessories to keep the wetness away. Like, there are cute absorbent headbands and headwraps I could wear while washing my face. There are wristbands ("wrist towels") as well, which might prevent my elbows from being soaked regularly. But I feel weary at the idea of buying MORE THINGS to address a very simple and regular feature of one's daily ablutions. Plus, where would I store them and would they also get stinky after a couple of days and would they even work???
Maybe I just don't know how to wash my face the proper way? How do you do it? How often and when and what products do you use? Even if you don't have any Life-Changing Secrets, I love hearing how we all do the exact same thing in slightly different ways, so please share your face-washing routine.
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